changing
brands

Fading brands

July 10th, 2000

"The true power in the marketing and branding world is
consumers," writes Alison Wellner in her review of Naomi Klein's No Logo.
"It's consumers that turn brands into superstars overnight and it's fickle
consumers that change their minds and send brands into the gutter. In fact,
many of the centrepiece mega-brands that Klein highlights in her book have
since fallen on the wrong side of the consumer trend cycle. Nike,
for example, is suffering because teen styles have turned away from the
athletic look. Tommy Hilfiger has lost its cool. The Gap isn't nearly the
success story it once was. The reason that we are deluged with marketing
messages today isn't because marketing messages are incredibly effective
it's because they aren't."

Microsoft overtakes Coke

July 18th, 2000

Microsoft is set to overtake CocaCola as the world's most
valuable brand, according to a survey by Interbrand. Interbrand estimates
the value of the CocaCola brand to have slipped 13% in the past year, down
to US$72.5bn, thanks to a number of factors including product recalls in
Europe and weak sales in the US. Meanwhile, the Microsoft brand is
close behind at US$70.2bn, up 24%.

Overall, the survey shows the dominance of the new economy,
and the decline of traditional brands. The next three places in the league
table are taken by IBM (up 21%), Intel (up 30%) and Nokia (up 86%).
Cisco, unlisted last year, jumps straight in at number 14, while Yahoo
and Amazon both register increases of brand value in excess of 200%.

Coke fights back

August 1st, 2000

Douglas Daft, new CEO of CocaCola, claims to welcome the
Interbrand result, as it provides him with a powerful message for his own
troops. He argues that when a company and its brand are synonymous, the
way the company conducts itself is as important to the brand as conventional
advertising and marketing. "Whatever the brand stands for, the company
must also stand for, and whatever the company stands for, the brand must."